Runaway Bride

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Bella settled herself behind the wheel, adjusting the seat and the rear-vision mirror. She turned the ignition and the engine purred with the low throaty growl of a jungle cat.

Cool. Excitement pinged. For the first time in ages, she was looking forward to this adventure.

As they left Rockhampton behind them and headed north along the highway, the morning air was fresh and the sun not yet hot. This was cattle country, smooth and flat, with straight roads and few trees and plenty of visibility. The sky was clear and pale and endless, and a flock of galahs fluttered overhead, their rosy pink breasts a bright contrast to the soft pale grey of their wings.

Bella felt her spirits lift even higher. She put her foot down and the little car leapt in response. This was fun.

‘You should try to catch some sleep,’ she told Damon, but to her annoyance his eyes remained stubbornly open. Didn’t he trust her driving? She pressed the accelerator a little harder, but reluctantly had to ease back when the car shot over the speed limit.

Out of the corner of her eye she caught Damon’s smile. No doubt he was amused and she wished he would go to sleep.

In a bid to ignore him, she let her thoughts turn to Kent. She’d fallen asleep last night without ringing to see how he was faring with the aftermath of their break up and it had been too early to ring this morning.

She hoped Kent was okay. At least she knew he wasn’t nursing a broken heart. She felt a bit guilty that she’d escaped the unpleasant job of ringing the wedding guests and the caterers, but he’d insisted that she leave him with the task.

This morning, she was truly relieved that they’d come to their senses in time. In fact, she could now look on her close brush with a serious, life-changing mistake as a useful warning. She would think very carefully before she leapt into any new relationship. She was certainly mega cautious about the man currently sitting beside her.

It was good to have these thoughts sorted, good to recognise that she felt more at peace with herself than she had in weeks.

To her relief, Damon was starting to relax, too. He stretched his legs out as far as the car’s cramped interior would allow, let his head fall back and closed his eyes.

Great. Finally, he trusted her driving, and she felt better than ever.

Bella drew a deep lungful of the fresh air rushing past them. She’d never been this far north before. She took in details of her surroundings and pondered on the lives of the people living in the vast cattle stations that stretched for miles on either side of the highway.

She felt so relieved and light-hearted she might have broken into song if Damon hadn’t been dozing. Instead, she hummed softly under her breath, and she was still humming when she saw the blue-and-white car appear in her rear-vision mirror.

Was that a police car?

Uneasiness lifted the hairs on the back of her neck. Hastily she checked the speedometer. Whoops—just over.

With a guilty grimace, she applied the brakes and hoped she wasn’t in range of the police radar.

She was out of luck. Almost immediately, blue-and-red lights began to flash behind her. Damn.

The police car drew closer, the lights flashing bossily. Bella groaned, ‘Oh, God,’ and unhappily pulled over to the edge of the highway.

Beside her, Damon stirred. ‘What’s up? What’s happening?’

‘Police,’ she muttered miserably. Wasn’t this the story of her life? Every time she tried the tiniest adventure, fate slapped her down.

Damon shot a glance behind and saw the police car pulling up. ‘Were you speeding?’ ‘Not really.’

Bella half expected Damon to swear, but he merely let out a soft, resigned sigh. She felt sick as she heard the crunch of a heavy tread on the bitumen behind them. In the car’s side mirror she saw a tall, blue-uniformed figure. She sat up straight, lifted her chin to a dignified angle.

The policeman was young and puffed with self-importance. ‘Good morning,’ he said in an annoyingly pseudo-friendly voice.

‘Morning, constable,’ Damon answered.

The young policeman ignored his greeting and fixed cool blue eyes on Bella.

She tried to look innocent. ‘I wasn’t speeding, was I?’

The policeman shrugged. ‘Can I see your licence, madam?’

‘Oh? Oh, yes. Sure. It’s in my bag.’

Her bag was at Damon’s feet and their hands collided as they both reached for it. Their gazes met and Damon’s eyes held a silent message of empathy. Then he smiled and winked.

His smile helped, but Bella was flushed and shaking as she handed over her licence. The young policeman frowned officiously and began to jot down her details in his notebook.

Beside her, Damon let out an annoyed huff. ‘How about an explanation, officer? What’s the problem?’

‘I’ll need your licence too, sir.’

Bella was sure Damon would protest this time. After all, he was merely a passenger. To her surprise he said quietly, ‘Yeah. Whatever.’ Then pulled his licence from his wallet and handed it over.

Now she was seriously scared. Why did the policemen want Damon’s licence, as well? This couldn’t be a mere speeding infringement.

Memories of Damon’s reckless reputation flashed through her thoughts. He’d been pretty wild in his teens. He’d even been arrested by his own father when he was eighteen and it had caused a scandal that fired up Willara’s gossips for months. Bella’s parents had listened, and they’d refused to let her see him. Not long after that Damon had left town.

She’d always believed the infamous event was a storm in a teacup, blown out of proportion by small-town rumours, but she had no idea what Damon had done since then. She wasn’t intimate with the details of his past ten years.

The policeman certainly seemed suspicious. Directing a mean, narrow-eyed glare at her, he reached in and snatched the keys from the ignition.

‘Hang on.’ Damon looked at the policeman in surprise. ‘You owe us an explanation, mate. What’s your problem?’

‘You’re the ones with the problem.’ The constable spoke with annoying, self-righteous confidence. ‘I’d like you both to step out of the car. This is a stolen vehicle.’

‘Stolen?’ Bella cried. ‘That’s impossible. It’s a hire car.’

She felt Damon’s hand close over hers, squeezing her fingers gently but firmly. ‘Just do what he says,’ he murmured softly. ‘I’m sure we can sort this out.’

The policeman nodded. ‘You’ll have to come back to the station with me.’

Bella choked on a gasp. This couldn’t be happening. It was a nightmare. She couldn’t breathe.

But she was also as angry as she was scared. She hated the policeman’s tone. Chin high, she challenged him. ‘Can’t we just follow you?’

‘No, Miss Shaw. I’ll arrange a tow truck for this car.’

‘Surely you’re not arresting us?’ asked Damon.

The young policemen almost smiled. ‘If you like, I can arrest you right here on suspicion, or you can come to the station to answer some questions.’

No! This couldn’t be happening!

Horrified, Bella turned to Damon. His lovely grey eyes were dark with sympathy and a deeper, unreadable emotion. She expected him to say something, to do something, to become the risk-taking hero she knew he could be. But he simply gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head and then an equally faint shrug.

To her dismay, she knew exactly what he was telling her.

We have no choice. Come on. Let’s co-operate.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRAVELLING down the highway in the back of the police car, Damon was only concerned about Bella. She sat very stiffly with her back straight, her hands tight fists in her lap. Her green eyes were fixed dead ahead, not meeting his, and he knew she was terrified and bewildered. It was more than possible she was also wondering if he really had stolen the car.

He wished he could reassure her, but it wasn’t worth trying to talk within the copper’s hearing. This was probably Bella’s first encounter with the police, whereas he’d been pulled up more times than he cared to remember.

On many of those occasions the police had been nasty or they’d been agents of really nasty regimes, often armed to the teeth with semi-automatic weapons. Too often, they’d looked as if they wanted to shoot him, to take him off somewhere to interview him with electrodes attached.

Damon had learned fast and he knew there was always a system, always someone higher who would make the final call. The trick in these situations was patience. It wasn’t worth provoking or shouting about rights. It was best to hold your tongue, stay firm and confident. Not lose the plot.

He wished he could reassure Bella that on the scale of things Australia was the best place in the world to be riding in the back of a police car. She looked so serious and white-faced, so angry and afraid.

This was beyond awful.

Bella had never been inside a police car and she was fighting a rising tide of panic. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. None of this felt real. It couldn’t be happening, and yet the tiny part of her brain that was still functioning told her this was about as real as it got.

She wished she knew what Damon was thinking. His dark face looked unbelievably calm, and she wanted to believe he was innocent. Now, when the chips were down, she felt her old loyalty to him rushing back. She didn’t want to doubt him, but how could she be sure?